


On instagram straight flexin'

by zaynandlouis



Category: Big Brother RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Creepy Fluff, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub Play, Fantasizing, Lack of Communication, M/M, Masturbation, Original Character(s), Pining, Social Media, Stalking, Unrequited Love, flower child!zach, i can't believe that's already a tag, kind of?, photographer!frankie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-06 21:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3149231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaynandlouis/pseuds/zaynandlouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>to frankie, every picture zach posts is art. he likes to sell himself a lie about how he archives them for some sort of future gallery and not just his own personal wank bank.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> apparently, instagram-centric fic is my thing. 
> 
> title is from all gold everything by trinidad james. thank you to amanda for being my beta, as always.
> 
> clothing and products mentioned that are not mac, tommy, or nike can be found at o-mighty.com/products & themooncult.com

**ranceypants**  new thingz frm the weekend

the picture above is of a mac blush and a leather jacket with too many zippers, and frankie is embarrassed to admit it makes him hard. he gets off to it, closing his eyes and imagining zach sweeping the hot pink powder across his already rosy cheeks. 

he cums hard, wondering if it’s creepier to jerk off to a stranger’s selfies and half nudes, or of pictures of their recent cosmetic purchases.

after cleaning himself up with tissues, which have recently become a staple on his bedside table, he lays back against his pillows and stares at the ceiling.

knowing the date he found zach’s instagram on or remembering the first post of zach’s he saw would be creepy, but frankie remembers the relative time he found him. it was about four months ago, when zach still had bleached hair that was more green than blond and no more than a couple hundred followers.

at first it’d been an innocent interest. zach was cute, different from most of the guys frankie knew in real life. it was something to spice up his feed, something unique from the landscape photography that otherwise dominates every tab of his instagram aside from his own profile.

frankie had seen plenty of girls on instagram with the daddy’s-little-girl-who-loves-plants-and-fills-in-her-eyebrows-solid-black-no-matter-her-hair-color style, but it was different with zach. he got drawn in by zach’s tacky edits and selfies taken at intentionally bad angles, and before he knew it, he was visiting zach’s profile at least once a day.

by a thousand followers, frankie noticed zach posting haul-type pictures of clothing and tagging online clothing stores in almost all his selfies. he reasons out that it’s a sort of sponsorship, the emoji patterns and plethora of faux fur fitting in perfectly with the rest of zach’s posts. if only department stores sent free clothes to kids on the internet who eat too much japanese candy.

zach has plenty more than a couple thousand followers now, and frankie checks his profile three times a day. at least.

 

* * *

 

on monday, work goes by slower than usual, which is saying something.

frankie’s tired of people with too-smooth skin and too-perfect makeup. he’s tired of sitting around through three outfit changes when they all look the same to him, and he’s especially tired of being told to wait “just one minute” while the model gets her hair re-straightened for the twelfth time.

every female has to be petite, every male has to be masculine, and god forbid they ever hire someone with more pigment than a tanning bed can give.

he’s not exactly sure how he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in digital photography only to end up photographing department store clothing lines whos target audiences are no younger than thirty and no lower than upper middle class. he just knows it sucks.

all he thinks about all day is instagram. zach’s instagram, to be specific. his fingers itch to unlock his phone and check if zach has posted anything. sometimes, zach posts selfies of him making cute faces or a little more than half nudes, and deletes them after a couple hours. frankie often wonders how many he doesn’t catch and get screenshots of before they’re deleted.

to frankie, every picture zach posts is art. he likes to sell himself a lie about how he archives them for some sort of future gallery and not just his own personal wank bank.

zach is no professional and most of his pictures are taken by his iphone, but frankie is envious of his creative freedom. aside from having to model the clothing he gets sent, zach can take pictures of anything he wants and edit them however he feels like. frankie, on the other hand, spends every shoot using the same angles for models that all meet the same fixed criteria. he mends every model’s imperfections with the same software, layering the same mundane filters over each photo.

during outstandingly sluggish shoots, frankie finds himself daydreaming of zach modelling for him.

zach has this one shirt, a fake cheerleading top with “beer” written across the chest, which usually gets paired with slide shoes that read “wish you were beer”. it’s short enough to show off his light happy trail, and sleeveless so that his pit hair is visible. frankie would really like to get zach the matching skirt (he’s already googled it, yes) and perhaps some pom poms, and do a shoot with him on a football field. 

"can you turn towards the left?" he asks a model after lunch, only to be met with a nasty look and slumped shoulders.

"can’t we take a break?" she whines, pulling at the scratchy material of her blouse. frankie was showed the collection previous to the shoot, so he could judge the lighting needed, and the top she has on had made his skin crawl when he felt it. he almost feels bad for her.  _almost_.

a break would only make the shoot run long, and that means the possibility of a continuation tomorrow, and frankie doesn’t know if he can handle that. so, he bargains. 

"there’s only one more outfit change, and if we power through i can have you out of here in an hour."

she sighs, but finally shifts left.

 

* * *

 

after somehow managing to make it through the work week, frankie is looking forward to a weekend off. there’s an instagram app and a hot bath waiting for him at home.

you can imagine his disappointment when he’s forced to forgo that relaxation for a loud club full of sweaty boys young enough to sport pizza faces and over-weight bears with joint custody of kids who still think mommy and daddy got divorced because they “grew apart”.

the night starts out okay; frankie and paul sitting at the bars with their drinks and surveying the floor for anyone half decent. then, some leather daddy with a bad haircut sends paul a drink, and frankie finds himself fending off men with bad breath who don’t understand the concept of personal space all by his lonesome. 

one boy is especially persistent. he manages to inform frankie he’s twenty, a natural ginger, and attending the alma mater of the mattress king from his hometown before he even gets frankie’s name. apparently, ruining the curve for everyone in his statistics class is his proudest accomplishment to date.

frankie tries to shake him, going to the bathroom only to come back to the boy still sitting at the bar waiting on him. he considers ducking out and going home without paul, but when he scans the dance floor he spots him and the man from before grinding, looking more than a little inebriated. abandoning a friend when he’s got a hard dick against his ass and no money for a cab is just cruel, so he stays.

"so, what do you do for a living?" the boy asks, practically bouncing with pride that frankie didn’t blow him off. it’s sad, really.

"i’m a photographer," is all frankie replies with. he doesn’t want to talk, much less about work.

the boy kind of nods his head, leaning even more into frankie’s area as if it will prompt him to continue. it doesn’t.

"so… what do you take pictures of?"

frankie takes a deep breath and contemplates how rude it would be to take his phone out and check his instagram feed instead of answering. alternatively, he downs another shot. 

"clothes. models in clothes, rather. i’m a fashion photographer for department stores."

by the end of the night frankie’s got what he fears may be a perpetually flaccid dick and a hundred and thirty pounds of queer roommate hanging on his arm. paul decided the leather daddy is a little too leather daddy, even for him. 

they, by some small miracle, manage to get themselves stuffed into a cab with a driver lovely enough to let frankie know there’s a barf bag under the seat if his friend needs to empty out the contents of his stomach.  

 

* * *

 

"didn’t you think that redhead was cute? he seemed to be into you," paul tells him, grabbing a water from the fridge and cringing at the bright light it expels. he chugs half the bottle in one go.

frankie grumbles, picking his head off the table and shooting a disgusted look across the room.

"yeah, i love them pasty and with neck zits. just my type."

"what is your type, frankie? you haven’t brought anyone home in, like, a month. you’re not exactly one to have a dry spell."

paul’s right. frankie doesn’t have dry spells. he just gets obsessed with internet boys.

"i don’t know," frankie shrugs, watching paul get another water and come to sit across from him. he shoves the full bottle towards frankie and takes another sip of his own. "maybe i don’t have a type anymore. everyone bores me."

"did you ever think everyone bores you because you don’t pay them any attention?"

it makes a gross amount of sense, and frankie kind of wants to kill paul. maybe when he’s sober and the room stops spinning.

 

* * *

 

frankie sighs, climbing into bed and pulling the covers over him. he unlocks his phone, opening the instagram app. it’s moderately embarrassing that he no longer has to search for zach. he’s always the first person in his recently searched users.

impatiently waiting the four seconds it takes zach’s page to load, he feels a jolt of excitement when he sees there are two new posts in front of the picture of nike socks he’d seen on his feed this morning.

he clicks on the most recent post, frowning when it’s just a bottle of aloe water with yellow sparkles edited randomly around it. when he clicks back he can see the second most recent post is a selfie, and he perks back up.

 **ranceypants**  spank me [ @themooncult ]

his eyes flicker from zach’s face to his shirt, and reads the bright pink writing that pops against the black background. “yes, daddy?”

and fuck, frankie’s more aroused than when he caught the bare ass shots zach only kept up for twenty minutes last week.

snaking a hand down his pants, frankie rubs himself over his tight briefs. 

he decides to go slow tonight, and clicks out of the app. he opens his gallery, then his screenshot folder, and scrolls until he finds a picture of zach’s ass in a pair of tommy hilfiger boxers that are most definitely a size too small. it’s from the back, probably taken by a timer or by one of zach’s friends. his thighs are covered by gym shorts that he has pulled down, tucked under his ass cheeks.

frankie imagines what it’d be like to have zach in front of him like that, practically fully clothed and still begging to be spanked.

his breathing starts to pick up, his fingers now wrapped around his erection. pumping his hand in slow, unhurried movements, it takes frankie a while before he feels the familiar tightening in his gut.

taking his hand out of them first, he pulls his underwear down and off. before he touches himself again, he pulls zach’s selfie back up on his screen.

it wasn’t until zach got a considerable amount of active followers that he’d started sharing more personal things. even though he knows zach’s intentions are merely to keep his following engaged, frankie sometimes feels like every intimate detail about himself zach reveals is a treasure just for him. he knows it’s delusional, but so is abandoning your actual social life and sex life to jerk off to a boy you’ve never talked to.

when frankie initially found zach, he had only fantasized that zach would submit to him. he still can’t be sure how much of the daddy kink talk is genuine and how much is for the shock factor, but shit, the idea of zach calling him daddy is hot.

he stares at zach’s pouty bottom lip and imagines smearing his precum there, telling him things like  _you’re such a good baby_  and  _you look so pretty with my cum on your mouth_. he wants so badly to feel zach’s mouth on him, hot and wet, and probably enthusiastic as hell.

frankie wonders how paul would react if he told him his type is broad-shouldered boys with possible daddy issues who get sponsored by omweekend and buy five dollar bottles of water just to take pictures of them.


	2. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many apologies for the two month hiatus i just accidentally took. i really burnt myself out over the holidays, but i mean, wasn't the candy cane fic totally worth it? 
> 
> title is from all gold everything by trinidad james.
> 
> thank you to amanda, nicole, kaylee, and everyone on twitter for keeping me motivated about this. and a special thank you to amanda for being my beta.

it’s been weeks, and nothing has changed. frankie’s life has become a cycle sadder than one of a middle-aged housewife, and he doesn’t know how to break it.

_wake up. check zach’s profile. shower. eat the burnt toast paul leaves in the toaster. take the subway to work. somehow manage to stay upright for two or three shoots, four on a busy day. take the subway home. eat leftovers from paul’s business dinners and nights out. jerk off to zach’s picture, or at least while thinking of him. sleep. repeat._

occasionally, he calls in sick to work and orders pizza, making sure to hide the box before paul gets home so there are no questions about why a hundred pound man is eating entire pizzas in singular sittings. those are his favorite days, because there are no people, questions, lighting mishaps, or ripped tights to distract him. there’s no anxiety over missing one of zach’s posts. his fingertips never leave the screen of his phone long enough to itch for the instagram app.  

okay, so maybe things have changed. it’s possible they’ve just gotten worse.

today, work is nicer than usual. the models are the most unique he’s seen since taking this job, naturally bronzed skin complimenting their native features beautifully. the makeup artist for the shoot is a friend, beatriz, and frankie watches in awe as she paints their dark eyes with inky, pitch-black shadows and bold liners. the models’ hair alternates between board straight and up in tight buns depending on the outfit they’re wearing, and even the clothes aren’t as dull as frankie has become accustomed to.

the models end up asking frankie and beatriz to lunch, promising they know a bistro no more than three blocks away that makes a wonderful chicken salad. frankie is usually stuck eating vending machine junk or a breakfast bar he’d shoved in his bag during a late morning the previous week, so he’s grateful for the invitation.

one of the models is all the way from georgia, and they spend the first half of lunch listening to stories of the south and her childhood. she tells them about growing up wishing she could experience her creek heritage past the tales of ceremony and spiritually from her grandmother, depicting the rolling mountains of north georgia and the colorful customs of her people so vividly that frankie is entranced, clinging to her every word and asking questions that he wishes didn’t come from such ignorance. he feels honored to be cultured by this woman, and a sudden realization that this is the first conversation he’s truly engaged in over the last few months, and it hits him like a ton of bricks. 

every interaction has been a task lately. holding a dialogue is a struggle, even when he bothers to actually listen to the words coming out of the other person’s mouth. even with paul, their back and forth is watery; feeling more like a routine than anything of substance.  

frankie sighs, zoning out of the current conversation. it’s turned to relationship statuses, anyways, and he’s growing tired of stepping around questions about his love life, or pretending as if he’s content with not having one. the healthy thing to do, frankie knows, is to uninstall the instagram app and rejoin reality. going on a few dates, renewing the gym membership he let lapse a month ago, meeting friends he hasn’t spoken to, much less seen, in weeks for coffee; they’re all healthy goals that could realistically be met short-term.

except, none of them make him feel hopeful or optimistic. they all sound like chores, things he’d have to drag himself out of bed for and down more energy drinks than his heart could handle to get through.

he no longer has any drive, any work ethic, or even a real concern for his own emotional health. frankie’s entire life revolves around one thing, and that thing is zach. it’s beyond instagram - more than a profile to check or a post to like. zach has managed to be more than an obsession, more than a pretty face on a phone screen, and he’s never even spoken directly to frankie. frankie’s in love with someone he’s never met, never had a conversation with, and he doesn’t have a single fucking idea what to do about it.

 

* * *

 

"me and a friend from work are having drinks," paul announces casually, scrolling through his phone.

after his epiphany at lunch, frankie had thought some quality time with paul would clear his head. he’s missed paul; the company and the genuine conversation that he’d forgot his roommate was so good at keeping up. they’ve been best friends since frankie moved to new york and they’ve lived together for almost as long, and frankie feels kind of awful that he’s let them grow apart. or rather, let paul continue growing while he stays frozen like a glitch on the instagram app.

"okay. i can wash the dishes tonight, but you have to promise you’ll do them tomorrow," frankie tells him. he fidgets a bit, trying to get comfortable while he scrolls through channels. settling on a kardashian rerun, he tries to ignore the fact that he’s seen this episode at least four times already.

paul sighs and shifts so he’s facing frankie, setting his phone down on the coffee table he previously had his feet propped on.

"frankie."

"paul."

"that’s not what i meant."

"what? you want to wash the dishes before you go out?"

frankie spares paul a confused glance before going back to staring at scott disick, who’s relaxing by the pool shirtless, on the television screen. it’s a nice sight.

"i was thinking the dishes could wait until tomorrow altogether, and you could come out with us. this guy’s sweet, but i don’t know if this is supposed to be a date, or if his friends are going to be there, so i figured i’d bring someone just in case."  

"can’t you take lauren?" this gets him a sound of disgust and probable irritation from paul, and frankie knows he’s evading the invitation. he really doesn’t want a repeat of the last time paul dragged him out. little twinks you wouldn’t let pet your dog, much less touch your dick, aren’t worth the hangover.

when paul gives him a pointed look instead of replying, he gets up and shuffles into the kitchen. in a vain attempt to change the subject, he mutters something about hoping they still have some popcorn left. paul just follows him, keeping up the condemnatory looks and seemingly unconcerned with frankie’s admittedly pretend hunger for popcorn.

"oh, excuse me. i forgot you’re going to be otherwise engaged. stalking underage boys on instagram and watching reality shows is a grueling job. really, i would never want to interfere with your extremely busy schedule. my apologies, frankie."

letting out an exasperated sigh, frankie can’t stop himself from going on the defensive. “he’s perfectly legal, i’ll have you know. and not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but i was actually planning on messaging him tonight.”

"shit, really?" paul asks, shocked enough to almost fall from his place perched at the counter. frankie immediately goes bright red. he can feel sweat trickling around the collar of his shirt.

"i mean, yeah. why not?" because you’re a fucking pussy, the little voice in his head reminds him. "i’ve been following him for, like, the better part of a year, probably. what could it hurt?"

they’re rhetorical questions, but paul seems to understand that frankie needs reassurance.

"you’re hot as fuck, frankie. he’ll take one look at your profile and wish it was him that had been stalking you for a year."

it’s the thought that counts.

 

* * *

 

"so, are you seeing anyone?"

it takes all the willpower frankie has not to scoff in disgust. none of the girls at lunch had pressed him when he hadn’t contributed to the love life conversation, but this was still the second time in twenty-four hours he’s found himself in the middle of one, and he can’t help but wonder when everyone became so obsessed with having significant others. he guesses that whenever it happened, he was too busy paying attention to zach to notice.

on the bright side, this guy is asking because he’s hoping for the absence of one, which would increase the chances of him getting lucky, and at least that gives frankie the upper hand.

before zach, when his sex life still consisted of more than lock screen foreplay and lotion infused tissues, frankie lived for situations like this. he loved manipulating people, especially men. 

playing with guys who were obviously interested, but who he had no real intention of ever allowing within a block of his apartment, was a cheap thrill. knowing that any man he wanted to would follow him home like a lost puppy at the bat of an eyelash was exhilarating. he could hook three or four boys a night, having his pick if he decided he wanted to wake up in a strange bed with a strange man the next morning. the strange men were usually accompanied by hangovers that made him retch and the burn of nail marks down his back from the activities that had happened in the strange bed the night before, but they kept him happy.

he fell into relationships occasionally; usually the result of a needy one night stand not waiting for his consent before scribbling their number on his arm in permanent marker, or more effectively, convincing a very intoxicated frankie to cough up his pass code so they could add themselves to his contacts, colorful heart emojis decorating their boring names. more often than not, those relationships ended before there were enough things of theirs’ at his apartment to fill a box. it was as if his subconscious could sense when more than two of their shirts had made their way into his closet, and told him he should probably start coming up with cheesy breakup lines.

looking back at how much he used to get around, he can see why paul is concerned about the teenager-induced celibacy kick he’s been on.

"not recently. i’ve really been focusing on my career lately," he lies, knowing there’s an awkward silence when he gets lost in his thoughts, but not being able to bring himself to care.

"oh, yeah. me too," the guy nods, pausing to take a sip from his drink. "not that i wouldn’t be willing, if the right person came along."

unfortunately, frankie’s heard worse lines. still, the raised eyebrow and smug half smirk make it hard to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

giving the guy a distracted hum, frankie looks around for paul. the guy they’d come to meet hadn’t brought a friend, leading paul to believe it was indeed intended to be a date, and he must have asked frankie to hang around just in case things went sour. he’d added that frankie might find a nice guy if he made the effort to socialize, and frankie had done his best to agree to try without looking too suicidal.

so now, here he is, fending off men who are too forward, while paul gets romanced. memories of the last time they’d been out together float back to him, along with a vague recollection of a leather daddy.

 

* * *

 

just how miserable the cycle of his life dawns on frankie a good hour or two into the night.

paul is pressed into a corner, cuddling up to mister ‘i-didn’t-clarify-this-was-a-date’, but it is, and it’s going to last three hours. every time frankie looks over, he feels sick; disgusted at how paul is acting drunk and in love on a first date that he’s barely finished one beer during. not that frankie is keeping up with how many beers paul is drinking, or anything. he just doesn’t want a repeat of the last time they went out, because not every cabby is nice enough to provide complimentary barf bags.

it’s when frankie starts making a beeline for the bathroom, attempting to avoid the mob of metrosexual hipsters who think it’s progressive to hang out in gay bars, who are coming through the front door, that he sees the guy.

the red head, pizza-faced, statistic master that he is, standing across the bar, and he’s staring right at frankie. the acne has gotten worse, if that’s even possible, and frankie can feel his balls un-dropping when a pasty white hand waves at him. he’s pretty sure he can feel his dick making a commendable effort to invert itself when the carrot top starts approaching.

breaking eye contact, frankie ducks his head and hurries into the cinder block cave this bar provides for all its patrons’ urination and glory hole needs.

a different bar, a different night of the week, a different guy for paul to abandon him for, and the universe is still giving him nothing but this walking erectile dysfunction ad.

when he has to pee in a stall to forgo the awkwardness of mutual bladder release, while efforts towards what some might call flirting happen, frankie decides he’s definitely got to message zach if he ever gets out of the hellish twilight zone episode he seems to currently be living in.  


End file.
